Left: Scarf silk screen print by Robert Earl Paige, 1964. Right: Hand-painted and dyed crepe de Chine silk by Robert Earl Paige, 1990. (Provided)

It’s an inspiring spring at the Hyde Park Art Center, where two shows by essential Chicago artists are currently in bloom.

“The United Colors of Robert Earl Paige” features spirited and playful objects — artwork, fabric and furnishings — that aim to engage.

Paige is a living legend, a Black artist who blends art and design in unexpected ways. He uses colors and patterns as common ground; in his hands they are unifiers of human experience.

Here, African decorative arts meet the formalism of the Bauhaus. It’s a beautiful union, and it suggests that beauty is, or should be, a way of life.

The artist is also an entrepreneur. His signature Dakkabar Collection was sold at Sears stores in the 1960s. A portfolio of fabric samples from his Sears collection is part of the show, along with works he made with Oscar Isberian Rugs. In another gallery, Paige generously shares the limelight with creative partners.

Experiencing Paige’s artwork is to celebrate the colorful palette of humanity and the spirit of collaboration.

Upstairs at the center, “Alice Shaddle: Fuller Circles” reintroduces an exceptional, though little-known, Chicago artist.

A master of materials, Shaddle made collages that resemble Impressionist paintings, canvases that are three-dimensional, and pencil drawings that somehow look like textiles.

Art on display in “Alice Shaddle: Fuller Circles” at the Hyde Park Art Center. (Marc Vitali / WTTW News)

She was also deeply inspired by nature, and whether her works are gorgeous or haunting — some are both — they display a meticulous approach to merging media. Mosaic-like compositions need to be seen up-close, at a middle distance and from across the room. The more they are studied, the more they reveal.

Shaddle was a longtime teacher at the Hyde Park Art Center and a founder of Artemisia Gallery, a women’s cooperative gallery that operated in Chicago from 1973 to 2003.

And for more than 50 years the artist lived in a Frank Lloyd Wright-designed home, the George Blossom House. She found inspiration in its architectural features and engaged with its Prairie School vocabulary.

Shaddle might be underappreciated, but she was wholly original. This small but significant show could go a long way toward correcting the historical record.

Lastly, to see the Shaddle exhibit you must walk through a hallway that has been transformed by another artist. “Through the Hothouse” is an immersive vision in saturated colors by Aimée Beaubien, a professor at the School of the Art Institute. Here, she has made a walk-through funhouse that reflects on the natural world and the constructed world, raising serious questions but remaining seriously fun.

“Through the Hothouse” at the Hyde Park Art Center. (Marc Vitali / WTTW News)

All shows are free at the Hyde Park Art Center.

The Paige and Shaddle exhibitions are part of Art Design Chicago, initiated by the Chicago-based Terra Foundation for American Art.

• “The United Colors of Robert Earl Paige” runs through October 27.
• “Alice Shaddle: Fuller Circles” is on view through June 16.
• “Through the Hothouse” will be up through June 2.